Abstract

This thesis places Forster's fiction in the homosexual
tradition of English literature and presents, for the
first time, a full exposition of the homoerotic motifs
in each of Forster's novels. Homoerotic desire has been
only partially recognized in Forster's texts, but as the
following chapters show the desire for male love is
pervasive and affects the structure and techniques of
Forster's writing.
Homoerotic desire in Forster's fiction attaches to
the ideal of friendship and the theme of friendship is
invariably connected with the metaphor of journey.
Forster uses the metaphor of journey to transport his
narratives beyond the confines of English middle-class
values to a region where relations between men are
acceptable.
A homosexual reading of Forster's texts has several
implications for his work. Firstly, it emerges that
Forster's novels are covert texts which convey the ideal
of male love evasively, by strategies of deferment and
delay. Secondly, the author's interest in another
country, Italy or India, is not for the sake of those
countries but allied to homoerotic desire. Lastly, for
all the apparent dissimilarities between them, all of
Forster's novels variously approach homoerotic desire;
the themes of journey and friendship are common to all
the novels.
The chapters of this thesis demonstrate the way
homoerotic desire operates in Forster's narratives. This
involves a close reading of the text and an alertness to
the novelist's manipulation of language. The thesis
reinterprets passages from Forster's novels that
previously have either been overlooked or dismissed as
obscure.
Forster's treatment of homoerotic love in all his
novels, except Maurice, is problematic. The narrator's
attempts to conceal the real tendency of his narratives
creates a tension between the explicit statements and
the undercurrents in his texts. The conflict is never
resolved, but it gives the novels the odd, peculiar
quality that is characteristic of Forster's writing.
Forster occupies a unique, if dubious position, in
English literature as a homosexual writer whose work has
been entirely assimilated into the mainstream,
heterosexual tradition.